Thank you for the full post - again, it sounds like your family is wonderful. At some point I would like to hear the story about the “re-bought” guitar and it would be great to hear if the bass gets used!
My dad’s friend had a great line in his eulogy a few years ago when a mutual friend of theirs died: “Kevin did a lot of things over the year that I disapproved of. I did most of them with him.”
I have no idea how you (or anyone else) might feel about this, so I hope no one jumps all over me just for putting the idea out there . . . I considered but ultimately decided against it after my grandfather died. After doing some research, I found that there are tattoo artists out there who would be willing to mix some ashes with a bit of ink and tattoo you with it. It’s just a thought, since you’re into tattoos and don’t know what to do with Tyler’s ashes.
I might’ve posted about it at the time, but rather than look for it I’ll give you a summary: a couple of days after we found out Tyler had a chordoma, my dad sold his Trini-Lopez to pay some bills. He didn’t want to do it and I hated seeing it happen, especially considering everything else that was happening at the time. So I went and bought it and gave it back to him. (It somehow appreciated in value 20 percent during the 24 hours it was at the guitar store.) He’s not allowed to sell it again because it’s not his, and I get to play it when I want. Come to think of it I should take advantage of that more often.
That’s a very good line.
That did cross my mind at one point. I didn’t look it up but I figured I could get it done if I wanted to. It’s an interesting tribute. I’m not feeling the need right now but it’ll always be an option.
We had almost a pre-celebration for Tyler on Monday: the Allman Brothers and some associated bands were in town for a benefit show, so we brought his bass to the stage door and hoped it would end up in the right hands. At the last minute - when I was on the point of giving up - it did. The Allmans didn’t use it, but it was passed to Berry Oakley (the son of the band’s original bassist) and played on the very last song of a concert that lasted almost six hours.
The last song was “Wish You Were Here.” I did. I do. It summed up everything pretty perfectly and I’ve never cried like that at a concert. The show ended at 1:45 a.m., and as the crowd was letting out, I got a call saying the Allmans’ bass player wanted to keep Tyler’s bass for a while and bring it back to New York in March. The band will be back home - back at the Beacon - in March. It was strange watching them play and knowing it was our first ABB show “after” Tyler. But knowing that bass is in such good hands and that they cared enough to keep it was a great feeling. I hope it gets played often. I’ll be there opening night and I hope I get to see it onstage.
The last of Tyler’s ashes were scattered a little while after our trip upstate. I don’t know where exactly, but I know it was in the waters off North Carolina. Our friend sent us a picture from the boat. The photo shows an acoustic guitar propped up against a seat, and arranged around the guitar are the ingredients for a White Russian. It looks like they had a good time Tyler would very much have approved of.
Thanksgiving was essentially normal, all things considered. We had a lot of food and I remember my mom saying we needed Tyler’s help to finish it. My other brother had a pretty hard time with the occasion. We watched a montage of Tyler photos that was prepared for the occasion. The first half was reused from his bar mitzvah (I think he picked the songs - they were Learning to Fly by Tom Petty, Ain’t Wastin’ Time No More by the Allmans, and Walking on the Moon by The Police). The second half was newer photos, and they were set to Such a Night (The Band & Dr. John) and Life Is a Carnival (The Band). I’d written my eulogy, or whatever it is, over the previous weekend and I was up late-ish reviewing it and helping my mom go over hers, which wasn’t really finished. I spent a little time jamming on Blind Willie McTell with my dad and my uncle.
We got to the bowling alley at 12:30 Friday afternoon, carrying photos and our speeches and music. People started arriving at 1, and they just kept arriving and arriving and arriving. At first the entranceway was overflowing, but then they started spreading out across the lances and it was still overflowing. I’m not being cute when I say we had ages 9 to 90 represented. I thought we’d have around 200 people, but we got RSVPs from more than 300 and the final turnout was close to 400. I was floored. Probably half of them were from camp. They do support their own. I’ve never seen the bowling alley that full, although they probably wouldn’t appreciate my saying that. 
The plan was that we would speak early and get it out of the way, but it was delayed because so many people kept coming and we wanted them to get in and get settled. My dad made some remarks on behalf of a friend who’d unfortunately missed his flight, and then four camp friends spoke, and then two of Tyler’s closest friends from home got up to talk. I went after that. I talked about some of the times Tyler made me laugh the hardest - the first time he ever made me laugh when he was around 3, the time he saved his baloney sandwich from a hotel fire in Boston, the movies we watched, and (later) that Law & Order episode with the baby coke dealers. I talked about jamming with him and his love for music and for food. I talked about how much he suffered when he got sick. It was hard to talk about that to all those people but I felt it needed to be said that he endured a lot of pain, bore it bravely but not easily, and had no illusions about what was happening. I asked them to help the Chordoma Foundation if they could (we did take in at least a few hundred dollars at the event), and to do good for each other when they could. And in kind of a spontaneous moment I told them that when they were having a good time, to overdo it once in a while - and when they heard a great song, turn it up and then turn it up some more so it was a little too loud, because I think that was the Tyler way. And I asked them to think of him when they did those things and remember him as a man who lived as well as he could and who’d want us to do the same. My other brother got up to talk about some of his experiences and his admiration for Tyler, and our mom talked about how our family changed when he arrived and his differences from the two of us. She said some interesting things about how he didn’t want to be seen as the brightest or the best the way we did, but wanted to be part of a group and enjoy life with his friends. She talked about camp and the things that he had in common with other family members. And she asked his friends to think of him when they do the things he wanted to do and didn’t get a chance - graduate college, get married, get a dog, buy a house, have a child. She finished with a line from The Little Prince:
“In one of the stars I shall be living. In one of them I shall be laughing. And so it will be as if all the stars were laughing, when you look at the sky at night.”
We hugged, the four of us. We’re trying to go on. It’s been almost a month. I’ve had a couple of dreams where I’m surrounded by incomprehensibly fierce weather - a white tornado carrying a house hundreds of miles, a rainstorm that blows out all the windows in a church one by one, a snowstorm with lightning - and I think I know what it all means.
Everybody went back to bowling and talking for a while. I spent so much time greeting family members I hardly knew or friends of parents. I was grateful for my own friends. At around 3 we played the video montage and I think I cried in the same exact places as the night before, maybe harder. In Learning to Fly, Petty sings “the good old days may not return.” That made me cry a little bit in a nostalgic way around the time of Tyler’s bar mitzvah, but in this context it’s just plain sad. Later he sings “so I started out for God-knows-where, I guess I’ll know when I get there.” Ain’t Wastin’ Time No More is a song Gregg Allman wrote shortly after his brother died. Tyler chose it for the literal meaning about not wasting time, but now it was being used in a way more fitting to its original purpose. That was hard to watch. There were a lot of great pictures of him, some of them very funny, a few really handsome, but most of just him in action and having a great time. After it ended they gave him a couple of rounds of applause.
We almost forgot the Lebowski cake when the desserts were put out, but I reminded my parents at the last minute. It looked like this.
The party officially ended around 4, although most people didn’t leave quickly. We probably got home at 5 and found 20 kids hanging out in front of the house - all Tyler’s friends from camp. We let them in and my dad recruited a drummer so we could have a jam session. With my dad and his brother on guitars and me on my bass, played Blind Willie McTell, an impromptu Melissa, and the reggae jam Tyler and my dad created. I let one of our guests play my bass on Moondance and All Blues before we retired upstairs for food and more conversation. Some of my aunts and uncles stayed pretty late into the night.
When I got back to the house and wandered into Tyler’s room in the dark, just for a second I really expected to hear him say “Hey.” And this while I was coming back from a huge party in his memory. But I didn’t hear anything and then I turned the light on. I still have the last few texts he sent me, and the very last one is “Can u walk ok?” I sprained my ankle the weekend before he sent that one. And I keep interpreting that one metaphorically. I guess I’m walking without him. As much as the whole thing sucks, and I wish we hadn’t needed to have this kind of event for him, I think he would have been moved by the turnout and I think it’s the kind of memorial he would have wanted. I wish there was more we could do, but for now, that’s good.
A beautiful post. Thank you for sharing that with us.
Yes, a truly beautiful post.
Here’s some video of “Wish You Were Here” from the concert last week. I didn’t film this or anything but I’m glad it turned up. This isn’t actually the Allman Brothers; it’s sort of a reunion of a band called Blue Floyd with some guests.
Marley23, take care, okay?
Thanks for that post. I hope things get easier for you soon.
Also, awesome cake!
I disagree with that last sentence…you’re actually walking with him.
I don’t presume to claim any knowledge about the eternal soul, or the afterlife, or anything silly like that, but…it’s my belief that as long as we’re able to carry with us a piece of what our loved ones left behind, no matter how small or seemingly insignificant, then they are never completely gone.
Keep up the good work, Marley – you’re doing great.
Your brother and family are terrific. I hope you continue with the path you have steered through this and continue to strive for the best in the future. Everyone’s input makes the present and future better or worse and you have been a plus through your brother’s hardship, which I’m sure inspired your brother through out all this. The support of your family helped him remain the wonderful person he wished to be. You will always be someone that has my respect for supporting him like you did, when others would have fallen short.
FYI Tyler is the feature of this month’s Chromaderma Foundation donation newsletter. Anyone who donated would get one. It does mention in the letter that Tyler passed, and even though I knew it, it was sad to read.
Hopefully Tyler’s story will help spur on more donations to help find a cure.
Marley, after reading that post yesterday afternoon, I dreamed I met your mom last night. A very nice lady. 
I hope she’s doing okay.
Thanks for the monster update, Marley–I literally couldn’t read the whole thing straight through (I found an excuse to go putter around in another part of the office for a while), and I can’t imagine it was anything but ten times harder to write. It sounds like you had a really amazing memorial for Tyler (and I laughed at the cake :D). As always, good thoughts headed out toward you and your family.
Ian’t it odd, opening the ashes? I too was a bit put off by the cardboard box with the baggy in it…
Funny story- we were going out on a friend’s boat to scatter my grandpa’s ashes in front of his beach house (we were WAY too close to the surf line- illegal but screw you guys, as Cartman would say). We were rushing around, getting everybody in the car, pulling away from the curb when I yelled “Dad! Where’s grandpa?” Yep- we had almost forgotten him! Guy almost missed his own service.
Peace & strength to you all, Marley.
Wow, it’s amazing how many people knew and were loved by your brother. I’m sure he still knows what great friends and family (including an exceptional big brother) he still has. It’s amazing to me that even though there are hundreds of us here that have never met him, I’m sure there are more than just me who have been touched by his story.
I remember at one point you were talking of writing a book about your brother. I might be out of the loop, but has anything more happened with that?
I remember my parents worried about that the night before we left. Nobody forgot, but I think he was the last “thing” that got put in the car and they did check in on him once or twice.
Me too. It’s been very encouraging to see that and to know that people cared. I think we would have been impressed.
I’ve gotten back to work on it the last couple of weeks. I’m trying to grind out all the stuff that happened since I left off last time. Then I’ll go back and add to it, and try to get details from my parents and his friends about the stuff I missed.
Just bumped this to let you know that I got the e-mail newsletter from the Chordoma Foundation and there was a nice write-up about Tyler in it. Figured people might want to see it.
That’s a wonderful article. Thank you for sharing.
Thanks for linking, that was a great article. I’m all teary-eyed again now. 